KASEY KAHNE (No 9 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Avenger) – 2nd “That felt good. I saw Stewart run a .33,and we were real close in practice. I knew we could run in the .30s. We made a few small adjustments from practice and that was it. We put on stickers and just had a good lap. I think my second lap was pretty decent, too. I got tight in the middle of three and four and still ran a .36. It was a decent lap. Our car was handling good in practice today in race trim and the test went well for all the Evernham cars. It was a good day for the Dodge Avenger. I think we’ll be strong on Sunday also.

“The big thing is you don’t have as much adjustment with these cars. At this track you’re picking up a good bit, but probably not as much as you will with the other car. When we go to Atlanta and some of the faster tracks later on, even Darlington and some of the bigger tracks, it’s going to be hard to pick up as much speed as say you do with the Dodge Charger.

“The handling characteristics, I think my car handled just like it did in practice. You have to do a few little things to make it that way when you put the tape on it to make more downforce.

“We just qualified good again, so we’ve got a good start to hopefully a great race on Sunday. The car felt good in practice and we need to keep it off the wall and have no errors by myself or the team. Hopefully luck is on our side and we won’t get in anybody else’s mess. It’s Bristol. Things are going to happen. Hopefully we come out of here with a top 10 and go into Martinsville and don’t have to worry about anything like any other week, just qualify like we always do, like we did today and go for the Bud Pole and have a good weekend.

“This is Bristol. If you go too slow here and try to take care of your stuff you get spun out from behind. People don’t care about you much here, so you just go as hard as you can and do what you have to do and hopefully everything works out for us. We’ve had some tough races. Kenny is back and hopefully he can bring some luck with us and get things turned around and we can start working our way back into the top 20.”

ELLIOTT SADLER (No 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Dodge Avenger) – 3rd

“I feel very happy with my run. We made wholesale changes between practice and qualifying. We talk about this all the time at Evernham, and that’s why I’m proud to be there. The 9 guys, Kasey and Kenny and all of them opened their books to us after practice. We made a lot of changes and made our car pretty close to his and it paid off. It’s awesome to have teammates like that. I agree with Kasey’s remarks. I think the Avenger is going to be strong this Sunday. It’s good to qualify up front here at Bristol. It helps you with pit selection. It’ll give you an opening in and out. Not knowing what the race is going to be like here Sunday, track position is going to mean a lot, so this is a great way to start the weekend.

“I think these cars definitely run a closer setup between qualifying and the race because we’re more in a box as a race team, things you can and cannot do to the car of tomorrow. The only thing at Bristol is we run so much air pressure in the tires. You have to come up to temperature so quick here because it’s only a 15-second lap. It might be a little different here than Martinsville or Darlington or some other places we go with the car of tomorrow like Richmond or New Hampshire. The chassis setup is a lot more similar now than it was with the car of yesterday.

“I think we’re so new to this race car that we don’t know what affects it the best each and every time. We’ve just got to throw stuff at it to see what it likes and doesn’t like. Whether Goodyear changes the tire or we have a spoiler change you always make changes at the beginning to see what the car likes. We came here with a certain package and the 9 came here with a certain package. Our stuff wasn’t working, so pretty much everything that bolts on a race car we changed between practice and qualifying and definitely made our car a lot better, but I think with a new product like we have, we don’t know what it wants 100 percent yet, no team does. We’ve tested and tested it, but until it gets in race conditions against 42 other guys you really don’t know.”

RYAN NEWMAN (No 12 alltel Dodge Avenger) – 22nd

“That wasn’t a perfect lap from my standpoint, but it was a good lap. We’re still working on our race setup. Our qualifying setup was pretty good, but we’re still working on our race setup. It’ll be the same old Bristol. There will be some beating and banging and there will be some cautions and red flags. I feel a lot better about it now than I did in the test, so that’s a big improvement.”

SCOTT RIGGS (No 10 Valvoline/Stanley Tools Dodge Avenger) – 8th

“We were too tight. We picked up a little bit, but I think the track picked up. That’s why everybody is so fast, but I hope we end up in the top 10. You’ve got to get all you can for qualifying here, so we used it up pretty much for two laps. The race won’t change much. It’ll be the same Bristol. You’ll have to try to take care of your car. I think we’ve got a decent car. We’re just got to stay out of trouble and take care of it until the end.”